


Green-Eyed Monsters

by RarePairFairy



Series: Fears [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Passive-aggression, Unrequited Love, but not exactly unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-14 17:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1274887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RarePairFairy/pseuds/RarePairFairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The universe gives Chris and the Sheriff a kick in the right direction ... in the form of a cute new Deputy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green-Eyed Monsters

Neither Chris nor John were going to make a move without the intervention of a third party.

The third party in question was the sea green-eyed, golden-haired Deputy Handsome Darling Ray-of-Sunshine, who Alison made the mistake of describing as “looks a little like my dad but younger and more attractive”.

It didn’t rankle Chris. No really, it didn’t. Not the slightest bit. Honestly, he barely even noticed the new deputy and his glorious ass. And it wasn’t like the Sheriff was spending practically _all of his time_ at work in the company of this flawless merman of a subordinate and WHOSE idea was it to make a 24-year-old a deputy anyway??

John didn’t care either. Mostly because Chris’s hackles shot up when his new deputy walked into the room while they were trying to have a subtle discussion about whether silver bullets would work on a werecat. Nor did he find it absurdly cute when Chris glared daggers at the back of Parrish’s head until Parrish turned around nervously, only for Chris to abruptly hide his expression under an unconvincing (and slightly predatory) smile.

Deputy Parrish himself genuinely did not notice the pull between his boss and the guy who – didn’t he get arrested for murder that one time? – and anyway, if he had a little bit of a crush on the Sheriff himself, that was his own business. The man was a DILF.

It made for a pretty picture whenever circumstance managed to get the three of them together.

Stiles and Alison had slowly been growing aware of the pull between their fathers, ever since Scott became an alpha. Their friendship was stable enough for them to consider privately, and then confessionally to each other, the possibility of being stepbrother and stepsister. By the time Parrish appeared on a glowing golden cloud of his own physical perfection, they thoroughly liked the idea, and had no qualms about using the poor new employee of the station to further their own ends.

‘So I think Deputy Parrish’s list of admirers is growing,’ Stiles said conversationally over dinner. John had been looking for an excuse not to eat his mushroom risotto and willingly took the bait.

‘Does he have a fan club at your school already?’

‘Probably, but actually I was just thinking of his older fans.’

John’s eyebrows dropped into their neutral frown. ‘Define “older”.’

‘Around your age,’ Stiles said, unfazed. ‘Personally I didn’t think Chris was the type, but, hey. Whaddaya know.’

John’s heart twinged a little in his chest, and he dismissed the feeling before he could pinpoint it as disappointment or petty annoyance.

‘As far as I know, he isn’t.’

‘The type? The way he was checking out Parrish the other day says otherwise to me,’ Stiles said with a noncommittal shrug.

John went into a mild internal panic. Maybe the death glares he was interpreting had, in fact, been lustful rather than aggressive? Maybe he was being dim when he assumed that Chris’s response to the new dep was out of jealousy. In fact, he probably _was_ being dim. What did he have that Deputy Parrish didn’t have in spades? He sulked into his risotto and Stiles didn’t know whether to mentally hi-five himself or mentally kick himself in the balls.

Unbeknownst to him but known to Stiles (it being half his plan), Alison was having a similar conversation with her father, and it wasn’t going as passively.

‘What do you mean, the Sheriff has been fraternizing with Parrish?’

‘I didn’t use the word fraternizing. And it’s not exactly inappropriate. I mean, they work together, so they _should_ like each other. I was only saying that the Sheriff and deputy Parrish seem to get along extremely well, and maybe it would be practical for Stiles’ dad to have someone at work, someone he’s already close to, who also knows about what’s really going on in Beacon Hills.’

Chris’s ears perked at the words “someone he’s close to”. How close? What had John and Parrish been doing that his daughter could describe as “close”? What had John been doing behind his back?

But John hadn’t been doing anything behind Chris’s back, because they were _friends_ , not married. If John found himself falling under the spell of the impossibly, unbearably attractive new deputy, Chris could hardly blame him. John was exposed to the boy (he couldn’t bring himself to think “man”) on a daily basis. And what exactly could Chris offer to counter that fresh, idealistic, toned Adonis’s influence? Emotional baggage and heavily armed paranoia.

It made for a tangible frostiness the next time John and Chris were alone, fortunately in the deputy’s absence, on a grey darkening afternoon in the Sheriff’s office following a forgettable encounter with a witch-in-training who had gotten a little overexcited about blood magic.

‘I didn’t think evil witches was a thing.’

‘They aren’t. Usually.’

It was uncomfortably same to their first ever conversation about werewolves. Slightly awkward, stunted, like they weren’t one hundred per cent sure where they stood with each other.

‘Deputy Parrish not around today?’ Chris said, trying to be casual and only succeeding in looking mildly suspicious. John tensed up and crossed his arms, leaning back against his desk.

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

Chris was seriously considering legging it when Stiles dropped by with late lunch. Two lunches.

‘Oh no kiddo, you are heading straight home,’ the Sheriff said firmly.

‘Sure am,’ Stiles said with an innocent smile. ‘This one’s for you, Chris. Keep my dad company. Make sure he doesn’t go and buy McDonalds. Counting on you!’ he spoke quickly as he strode quickly out the door, staring too brightly between his dad and the hunter, making the back of Chris’s neck flush.

John coughed and Chris cleared his throat at the same time. They determinedly didn’t look at each other. Chris decided that leaving would be too conspicuous. And anyway. He wasn’t about to allow something so ridiculous as a cute deputy sour what he had with John. On any other day, he’d stay.

So he stayed.

The lunch Stiles had dumped in front of him was a Tupperware container of curry, mild and brown-orange and swimming in some kind of yoghurt sauce. A glance told him that the Sheriff had the same thing, only he had another extra smaller container with steamed vegetables in it and a stern command written in Stiles’ handwriting.

John pushed it over the desk at Chris after scrunching up the note.

‘Want these?’

Chris smirked as gently as possible. ‘I get the impression Stiles really wants you to eat your greens.’

It was a semblance of normalcy, drifting slowly back to comfort, and even though he usually wasn’t one for curry, Chris tucked into his.

One third in, and Chris was making a mental note to thank Stiles, if only for his cooking skills. John had smiled at him twice, once when he stood to flick on the overhead light and once when Chris commented on the food, and for a while it felt like there was nothing beyond the door, no gunshots or blood or pain, no guilt and no violence. Just the two of them, eating a homecooked meal and getting used to smiling at each other again.

It was then, naturally, that the phone rang.

‘Eeeyup,’ John said into the receiver. His expression deadened immediately and he glanced at Chris. He answered cursorily and Chris puzzled over his flat tone, and that strange glance. John put down the phone and returned to his late lunch, now more of an informal dinner, without a word.

‘Work related?’ Chris prompted. John glanced up at him again, then away.

‘Yeah.’

Chris was going to leave it at that. He swore to himself he was. But the itch to know intensified, and he found himself asking the question he knew it was most irrational to ask.

‘Deputy Parrish?’

John’s eyes shot up and narrowed.

‘On the phone.’

‘Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was him. Why?’

John’s tone was abrupt, almost harsh. He looked like he knew it. Like he was embarrassed to know it, how clipped he sounded. How territorial.

‘Just curious.’ Chris looked down at the container he’d placed on his edge of the desk. He didn’t feel hungry any more. Why did he have to bring up Parrish? How stupid. He should have much more self-control than this.

But his self-control fled when it came to John, when it came to the very real possibility of John falling in love with someone else, maybe a woman, maybe Parrish, maybe a stranger, maybe Melissa. John was ruinous to Chris’s self-control, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Calm. _How do we approach a situation like this?_ Victoria had said it to Alison once, when Alison was trying to string her own bow for the first time, a wooden one for training, before she had advanced beyond beginners’ level. Distance yourself from your feelings. Isolate the thing that’s making you lose control. Arrange your dilemma in a series of mental dot-points, and address each problem in order of highest priority.

John. Parrish. Jealousy. Losing John to Parrish. Losing John to his own jealousy. Their friendship? Already suffering, because of Chris’s irrational negative feelings toward Parrish, and his fear of losing John.

Solution: tell the truth.

Chris fished around for another solution, but he knew it was mostly cowardice holding him back. He hadn’t thought about how to talk to John about his feelings because he hoped he’d never have to. What about their kids? What about their professional relationship? What if John got killed? What if Chris got killed? Worst case scenario; what if John didn’t feel the same way, and Chris never got to find out what happened if their kids were fine and they could spend the rest of their lives together?

Chris put down his fork. Their kids had shared life-altering, traumatic experiences. Chris and John were both adults capable of carrying out their duties as Sheriff and hunter professionally. And odds were, one or both or all of them might get killed. It was the price they paid for living in Beacon Hills and knowing what else lived there.

And if John turned Chris down, well. He’d live. He’d feel empty and miserable for a little while, but he’d live.

The light buzzed briefly, introducing a flickering shadow to the room, bringing Chris back into his body. The half-empty curry sat before him. It was lukewarm now. John, Chris realized, had also stopped eating, but he had finished his. Even the container of steamed vegetables only had three pieces of broccoli left in it.

Chris watched John twist a pen in his fingers and rifle listlessly through some paperwork, eyes skimming the documents. He seemed a little uncomfortable. The small but vivid defeatist in the corner of Chris’s mind suggested leaving, talking to John about it in the morning. The man clearly wanted to be alone. But the rest of Chris didn’t want to leave.

Now or never, and he knew it. While there was still a shred of recklessness left in him.

Chris reached over and placed his hand over John’s, stilling the motion of his pen.

**Author's Note:**

> can you see the massive crush my uterus has on Deputy Parrish from here or what
> 
> Also sshhhhshh episode 21 never happened shsshhh neither did the rest of 3b they’re all happy and romantic and snuggly together and everything is nice and good and safe and nice and nobody ever pointed a gun at anyone it was all a dream ssshhshshhh
> 
> I have this weird thing for slipping into Chris’s POV. I don’t know why. It’s like a reflex. This was meant to be in equal parts both John and Chris’s POV.


End file.
